Sunday, 14 December 2014

Footnote 32, by Loz Kaye

If
the history of this century has been about anything so far, then it is the bargain of
national security. A constant state of war carried out on a need-to-know basis.

Our
governments of various political hues, the NSA, CIA, GCHQ, have constantly asked
for, even demanded, our trust. We're keeping you safer, trust us. We're acting
within the law, trust us. We need the powers we ask for (and many more you
don't know about), trust us.

The
shocking report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on CIA torture activities
has revealed one tiny corner of the truth, one tiny corner of the misery the
US - and by collusion its allies - has unleashed on the world.

News outlets have
shied away from describing the atrocities contained in it for what they
actually are. I can't. It's rape, kidnap, mental cruelty, thuggery, torture and
murder.

Once and for all, this report shows how flawed that bargain of national security
has become. The trust we have been asked to have in the war on terror and the
rush to mass surveillance has been dangerously misplaced.

The
report is full of instances where the public and their elected representatives
have been lied to.

The CIA claimed that these “enhanced techniques” led to
useful information, preventing terrorist attacks. The committee found that in
no case examined was this true. Not one.

CIA Deputy Director of Operations
James Pavitt told the Senate Intelligence committee in 2001 they would be
informed of each individual who entered CIA custody. Didn't happen.

Pavitt
denied torture, and in 2002 denied existence of a detention facility. Lies.

The
CIA lied about the number of people detained. They lied about videotaping of
interrogations. They lied about using starvation. They lied about using sleep
deprivation to medically damaging extent.

The
idea that we should take the security services' word at face value after this
is not just laughable, it's obscene.

In
lots of places, coverage of the report has been rather warped by the CIA's point
of view.

It was presented that the failure had mainly been that the torture was
ineffective. In other words, that if it had been effective, then it might have been
worth persevering with the anal rehydration and simulated drownings.

To my
mind that is obviously monstrous.

What
this has done, though, has been to dispel the Jack Bauer, 24 fantasy that for our spooks
the ends justify the means and can be made to do so within a very strict
timeframe with space for adverts.

The constant claim has been that lives have
been saved, and therefore complaining about collateral damage was naive or
dangerous.

We now know that those claims have been made falsely in the past and
there is no need to take them as true without question in the future.

Equally,
the notion that this was done by a few “bad apples” has also been stripped
away.

Far from being a few rogue agents, this torture programme was devised by
contractor psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

They formed a company
worth $180m, and received $81m in payouts over seven years. This shows that
abuse was planned, systemic and well-funded.

In
all the detail of the report, as journalist Trevor Timm pointed out, there is
one case that seems to sum up that whole miserable saga.

Gul Rahman was
tortured at the CIA black site known as the Salt Pit, he was chained to the
floor and froze to death.

Footnote 32 explains curtly, “Gul Rahman, another case
of mistaken identity.” A human life, someone who lived, loved and was loved, ended up as a footnote by mistake.

The
favourite go to phrase for the mass surveillance lobby is that if you have
nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.

Clearly, Gul Ruhman had everything to
fear, freezing to death as a footnote in history. In
the globalised war on terror, we can all fear becoming another fatal footnote.

Of course, some of us more than others. Currently, Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin.

But until the government and mainstream parties truly face up
to what they have done, until we have a proper inquiry in the UK, and until the release of the Chilcot Report, then the powers that be deserve our fear, not our trust.

1 comment:

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